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<h2>A homeland visit with a young child</h2>
<img id="sidepics" src="../images/sidepics.jpg" alt="happy children">

<p>by Jane Brown</p>

<p>If we dig down deep enough, we will come out in China and we can
explore a new, mysterious, interesting land! That was my childhood
fantasy and I dug and dug and dug, but I did not get to China... until
adulthood,when my husband travelled to that distant land to adopt our
eighth child. Since then, I've had several fascinating trips to that
exciting land, but none so wonderful as the one I took recently with my
Chinese-born, now six year-old daughter, Sierra Song E. For her, it was
not just a vacation adventure, but a fervently longed-for and
long-awaited return to the land of her birth-- the land she had
fantasied about. Sierra Song E had also, by the way, dug in OUR backyard
in hopes of digging her way to China.</p>

<p>"There it is, Mommy-- there is MY China!" she happily chirped as
China magically appeared through the clouds from our speeding plane. "I
wonder if that is where I was born-- that place right down there near
the mountains. We are almost there, Mommy, and then we'll be in China!"
</p>

<p>Over the next week, we saw many spectacular and lovely sights in and
around Beijing, which was our destination on this particular trip. We
marveled at the grandeur of the ancient architecture in places we'd only
imagined we would ever get to visit: the Forbidden City, the Temple of
Heaven, the Summer Palace. We were captivated by the exquisite
treasures-- of bronze, porcelain, sculpture, painting, calligraphy-- and
more. We were awed by the magnitude of the Great Wall as it snaked its
way along the mountain tops for as far as we could see and disappeared
into the mountain mist beyond. We were ovelmed by the vast numbers-- of
people patiently walking, of bicycles, of cars whipping their away
around pedestrians and bikes, of tall buildings, of ancient sites. It
was the number and richness of the personal enounters with the people of
China that I think were most significant for each of us, however, and
especially for a tiny girl who was connecting for the first time with a
homeland she could not remember, but has heard about and talked about
daily in her short life.</p>

<p>A young child's lack of preconceived notions about life, in general,
insulates them from shock and surprises in store for visitors to an
unfamiliar country in a way that grown-ups can't count on. Most
everything is a first for the very young-- so the culture shock and
startling discoveries my husband and I encountered seemed to be taken in
stride much more easily by our daughter who is not, by nature, normally
adventuresome or easily trusting, or terribly flexible. While Marty and
I experienced everything about this new slice of China that we were
getting to see at a very fast pace, our little daughter very
matter-of-factly wove all into her life experiences and enjoyed herself
immensely, without being terribly overwhelmed. That in and of itself was
a surprise-- and a relief.</p>

<p>We were bombarded with so much attention that we might as well have
been celebrities-- for the sight of a pair of Westerners with a small,
English-speaking, child wearing a Chinese face was enough to stop
pedestrian traffic and cause us to be surrounded by large crowds
wherever we went. Shy and distressed by intense scrutiny and attention
at home when it occurs, our daughter (whom we had tried to prepare for
this before the trip) was seemingly non-plussed by this while walking
about the city and sights. She was every bit as curious about the people
who were intently staring at her, so perhaps she was not at all
surprised or concerned about their curiousity regarding our family.</p>

<p>"She looks Chinese!" was the regular conversation-openner. "She IS
Chinese" I would return. "But you are NOT Chinese," the other would
observe. "No, she is our daughter and we adopted her in China" I would
say. "Why does she speak English?" would be the next question. "We speak
English, she hears English, and she speaks English" is all that I could
respond with since my Mandarin is quite limited and not really very
adequate for sustaining much of a real conversation. The others could
only shake their heads and murmur aloud "She is Chinese. She should
speak Chinese."</p>

<p>Sierra Song E's simple attempts to speak to them in Chinese and our
always-ready smiles helped a great deal to bridge this gap of
understanding. Sierra Song E-- usually shy-- would often stop to pat a
small child, engage a baby in a simple game of pat-a-cake, shake
someone's hand or to bow, and use her own limited Mandarin to state her
name, introduce her parents, and tell something about her age or that
she goes to school or some other small detail of what her life in
America is all about. This would bring reciprocal smiles, a thumbs-up,
and often a warm pat and friendly nods. We watched as she was enfolded
into feeling a sense of belonging and oneness with the kind people she
was meeting. Her self esteem grew a foot taller. Her sense of herself as
a person of Chinese heritage grew a mile. "I look like everybody else.
You two don't!" she would say with an impish grin.</p>

<p>While her father and I took in the beauty and richness of the ancient
and wondrous sights, Sierra Song E was enthralled with the relationships
she developed with our travel gude and our driver. The driver, who did
not speak English, and Sierra Song E whose Chinese is not very
extensive, communicated beautifully with and without words. Soon, she
was taking his hand, clambering for him to swing her high into the air
(and she would giggle and shout), asking him to tell her again how to
name this or that object in Chinese, or chant with him: "I am a Chinese
person! You are a Chinese person. We are Chinese people!" Our guide was
someone to retreat to when the attention got to be too much to bear and
she needed to have the anonymity of clinging to the hand of a Chinese
woman so that she'd be just any child in a crowd. Our guide became her
friend-- someone who would patiently answer each of her many questions
and tell her stories about the places we were seeing. Someone who knew
all about the sort of things children would notice and be curious about.
Someone who was Chinese and a woman-- like the woman she would someday
be. " A-yi, wo ai ni" (auntie, I love you) she would tell her-- and
then, not wanting for me to feel left out, "I love you too, Mommy."
she'd happily tell us.</p>

<p>At home, she had struggled to pay attention to her Chinese language
lessons, use her chopsticks in place of a fork and spoon, and to behave
quietly. Somehow, in China, it was as though someone had swooped up our
daughter and replaced her with a twin who could easily and patiently
stick with these things. She would try to make herself understood even
if she had to pantomime part of the message she wished to convey. She
would NOT give up and use a fork-- and she finally mastered the art of
picking up tiny, slippery food morsels with her chopsticks without
dropping the bits before they reached her mouth. She was the model,
little Chinese child-- quiet, holding back her feelings of frustration,
tolerating the uncomfortably warm and humid weather which she is
unaccustomed to and complained mightily about in private, and paid
careful attention to what grown-ups seemed to expect or want her to do.
Not easy for a rather feisty, sometimes impulsive youngest child in a
very large, noisy, busy, high-maintenance family to pull off even for a
few hours let alone over two weeks!</p>

<p>Sierra Song E, heavily influenced by the many older adoptees she
knows who have traveled back to their own homelands of Korea, Thailand,
Vietnam, Peru, Columbia, etc.. and have shared their impressions through
film, books, poetry or another art form, was eager to record her
impressions and experiences for herself. She went to China armed with a
small camera, knowlege of how to operate our videocam, a ream of drawing
paper and markers, and her own locking diary that could be secured with
a tiny key. She diligently worked at writing, drawing, photographing,
and analyzing the experiences she was having like a tiny reporter
efficiently and dutifully doing her job with a great passion for her
work. Her father and I were surprised and delighted for we saw in this a
concerted effort to learn all that she could, take what she was
experiencing home, and lock it into her memory just as she locked her
recorded thoughts and feelings into her diary each evening. Even when
she was tired and ready to relax and cuddle or go right to sleep-- she
made certain she had recorded something at least in her diary first
rather than risk losing those memories. "I am not old enough yet to
write a book like my friend, Ying Ying (Fry) did, but I can make a book
for myself, can't I Mommy?" she asked.</p>

<p>Once before, when that same friend and her family had traveled to
China and to Sierra Song E's orphanage for a visit, Sierra Song E had
made a special request when they asked whether she would like to have
something special from that place. "Dirt-- I would like some China
dirt-- so I know its a really real place" she had quietly stated. She
had treasured that small bag of China dirt-- keeping it close to her in
her room, occasionally taking it out to be able to put her hand in it--
to feel a bit of China in her fingers.</p>

<p>Reminded of that, she had been keen to dig up some China dirt for
herself. Some to keep. Some to share with friends who have a shared
history of having been born in China just like her. The driver and our
guide were thrilled with this idea and were eager to help her. So, one
morning, we all left our car for the mountainside and dug up some rich,
brown, moist, and fragrant earth from Sierra Song E's beloved China. Its
one of the few memories that we do not have recorded on film, but it is
indelibly committed to heart and mind, for it was one of those golden
moments that a parent holds dear about his or her child's childhood.</p>

<p>Full of high emotion and a twinge of regret that our visit to China
had been so brief, but yearning for home, we all sat silent and somber
as our plane left the ground and China grew more distant and remote
below us. I could not help but recall the moment, years before, when our
plane had left the ground to start us on our way towards the U.S.and I
had sobbed -- desperately sad over all that our tiny, sleeping,
unknowing infant was leaving behind-- trading so very much for becoming
part of a family I hoped could give her what she would need to have a
fulfilling, but divided life. It had seemed an enormous responsibility
to be lifting her out of one life and plunging her into another--
without her even being old enough to know or have a say in such a huge
shift in the direction of her life.</p>

<p>Sierra Song E, Marty (her father), and I sat with our noses pressed
against the glass straining to see the land as it intermittently
appeared and vanished through the clouds. Almost in a whisper she
confided "I think maybe that place right down there may be where my
birth parents live, Mommy. I think maybe they might be looking up and
wishing that their little girl could fly down to them for a visit.
Someday, maybe I will look for them. I'm sending them a wish now. It is
that I hope they have enough to eat and they are happy. I hope they are
not missing me too much. I wish I could tell them that I will come back
to China again and again. I hope they catch my wish, Mommy and Daddy--
don't you?"</p>

<p>Now, each of us has only to hold the little vial Sierra Song E
carefully selected to contain her little piece of China-- the tiny bits
she dug herself, completing the fantasy she once had that she could dig
through the center of the earth to her homeland-- to transport ourselves
back to that mountainside in China where she procured her bit of China
dirt. Sometimes Sierra Song E holds the vial very close to her heart.
"Next year, we'll go back to China, won't we Mommy? Part of me lives
here now and part of my heart is in my China now, you know?" Yes, my
darling, that is the way it should be-- you are a daughter of each of
the two lands you rightfully claim as yours and yes, we will return,as I
hope you'll return many times during your lifetime-- sometimes with me,
at first, but eventually, on your own. Always, my love will go with you
and you'll carry some of my dreams in your heart, I hope, but someday
you won't need or want my guidance and protection. Someday, you'll have
independent thoughts and dreams that will guide you. May China always be
a land that calls to you and welcomes you. May you find peace of mind
and heart as you unite the dual pieces of your life through traveling
back and forth between the lands you rightfully claim as your own.</p>

<p>Jane Brown M.S.W.</p>
<p>Go back to the <a href="index.htm">Jane Brown archive</a>.</p>

<p class="fineprint">Jane Brown is both an adoption social
worker/educator and an adoptive &amp; foster mother of nine children,
some of whom are now grown. She lives and works in Arizona. She serves
on the editorial board of Adoptive Families Magazine and writes a
regular parenting column for the publication. She is the creator of
Adoptive Playshops which is a series of workshops for adopted children
age five+, their non-adopted siblings, and adoptive parents in which
children are helped through playful, multisensory activities to explore
growing up in an adoptive family and racial identity, plus develop
skills for dealing with societal attitudes and beliefs about adoption
and includes helping children resist and confront racism and bullying.
She can be reached at: janebrown77@earthlink.net or at: (602) 690-5338.</p>
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